Seen and heard on the Chicago Transit Authority

Weekend work: A Blue Line "ditto"

Just read last week's report on the weekend Blue Line work and say "ditto." Only change the dates and we still have the Blue Line closed from 10 pm Friday till 4 am Monday for slow zone work from Grand to Western. Shuttles will be in place.

I guess they wanted to let the workers take off Memorial Day. And no doubt couldn't pay anymore overtime.

Sunday's Bike the Drive also wreaks havoc with a number of bus routes, of course. Details here on other weekend service changes.

Have a great holiday weekend. I expect to see folks lugging bags of charcoal and cases of beer on the CTA this Friday and over the weekend.

Comments

I was on one of the "Blue Line" buses last weekend, got on at Division and took it up to Damen (I know, I was a lazy-ass). The bus got to Honore and a CTA enforcer dude approached the bus and told the driver that she wasn't supposed to be on Milwaukee (the BL busses are supposed to go up Ashland to North). She said she'd been this way 99 times today and that this was the first she'd heard of the different route.

So she gets to North/Milw./Damen and has no idea where the BL bus stop is (even though she already admitted to being there 99 times), and starts to make a left onto southbound Damen. I told her she probably shouldn't do that, as she was making an illegal left onto Damen as well as making the people getting on the bus there think that she was a sb BL bus - but she did it anyway. I got off, people got on, probably thinking they were on a sb bus.

It's nice that they apperently started this weekend's work (unless they changed it at the last minute) at exactly the moment that there would be a huge surge in people coming from the Blackhawks game, or just from bars watching the game. It seems rather unfortunate considering that Monday is a holiday anyway. If they think it is so important for the construction to last 54 hours, would there have been any drawbacks to starting the work at Midnight and finishing at 6:00 A.M. on Monday?

This is off topic,but I want to introduce a new revenue source for the C.T.A.---- flexible ads.These would be mostly bought by groups trying to spark public debate or marketing buzz.Offended by an ad--fork over some money and it's changed [someone else could pay to change it back or make it worse].Think a mustache would be funny on a particular ad,think about all those ads sporting a mustache.Imagine the fun the public could have with flexible ads of politicians.

The CTA's web site states that the Western - Clark/Lake Blue Line service will again be shut and that shuttle buses will carry passengers between those two stations. How long will this continue. I heard somewhere that this should continue into the fall, but I can't find any such information on the Internet, including on the CTA's own web site.